Heritage turkeys stroll the grounds at Springfield Farm in Maryland.

Photo © Flickr user ExperienceLA.

The National Farm-City Council is a nonprofit organization dedicated to linking urban dwellers and farm families. With a grassroots, educational focus, National Farm-City Week manifests in community-level events across the United States. Banquets, tours and job exchanges are among the activities held during this week.

For example, Farm-City Day was held in Hazlehurst, Georgia, with more than thirty educational exhibits, a kickoff dinner the night before, and hands-on opportunities to milk a goat and see sausage made.

Find out what Farm-City Week events are going on in your neck of the woods, or get something organized! Each year there is a particular focus for Farm-City education, and this year the focus is Animal Agriculture - raising livestock, basically.

Rooftop gardens have recently become all the rage in urban environments, making use of space that has access to sunlight and is otherwise wasted to grow delicious, nutritious food. But what if you don't have a roof?

A recent article in The New York Times highlights a developing trend: vertical farming. By creating edible walls, which are essentially panels of metal, filled with soil and seeds, you're doing more than growing food. Edible walls, like green roofs, provide insulation to the building, reducing the cost of heating and cooling. And they have one really big advantage over rooftop gardens: they're able to grow food in far less space than traditional gardens.

In the past few months, vertical farming has garnered a lot of attention for this reason. Edible walls can utilize graywater, recycling it to water plants. With vertical farming methods, you can grow plants organically, without the use of fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides. It eliminates the potential for weather-related crop failures if done indoors, and it minimizes pests and other diseases that can cause damage to plants as well. Most saliently, it allows otherwise unused space in cities to produce high-quality, organic, quintessentially local food.

While some vertical farming advocates foresee a future with skyscrapers full of high-tech edible walls growing food en masse for, well, the masses, right now the technology available is fairly simple. Simple doesn't always mean cheap, though, and The New York Times reports the cost of edible walls at "about $125 a square foot, or $500 per planted panel." Although it's an investment up front, just think about picking lettuce for a salad right off the wall of your fifth-floor walkup in the city. Sounds delicious to me.

He dares you not to think he is adorable. Not exactly a livestock guardian dog, but a farm puppy nonetheless. We are teaching him about not chasing - and catching - the chickens.

For farmers in the Northeast, at least, this growing season was a very hard one. Incessant rains and cold weather led to late blight, and it was hard for anything to ripen without the warmth of the sun. We did have a late rally with some warmer weather and sunshine, but it wasn't in time for many small farmers, who experienced serious crop losses. This New York Times article reports that much of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey farmland has been or is being declared agricultural disaster areas this year.

Tomato and potato crops were devastated by late blight, with massive crop losses for many farms. The first cut of hay was ruined for many farmers, which spills over into the cost of keeping animals in hay over this coming winter, putting additional stresses on dairy farmers and other livestock farmers (right down to the hobby farmer feeding his one horse).

How have you been affected by this growing season? Please share in our Small Farm Forums.

Have you ever thought back on your years of homesteading or farming and considered what you would have done differently, knowing what you know now? Or do you just wish you could fast-forward and tell your beginning farmer self all the secrets you'll undoubtedly know in twenty years?

In Homesteading Lessons Learned on Mother Earth News, Steve Maxwell lays out the wisdom he's gained after two decades of homesteading with his family. I read his tips eagerly, and found myself nodding along and jotting down a couple of notes as well.

Some of Steve's overarching themes mesh with things I've learned as I've begun my own journey: that it's best to take it slowly and build infrastructure first before gathering livestock; that raised beds can be a good thing; make your house work for you first - you have to have good shelter; a four-wheel pickup truck is a critical piece of equipment; and - my lesson most recently learned - high-speed Internet is not a luxury.

In fact, I found myself a bit more at peace with the two steps forward, one step back dance of "progress" here on my own small homestead. This year I tried to go all-out with garden space, and Mother Nature had a good laugh at my expense. Next year I'm going to refine my gardening skills in more limited square footage and focus on doing less, and doing it better.

Which of Steve Maxwell's tips are your favorites? What tips do you have for someone just starting on this adventure?

I won't leave this completely wordless. This is my new Internet receiver; it is fixed wireless, bouncing off an antenna on the top of the mountain I live on, which bounces off another antenna atop a larger mountain (where I go snowboarding), which bounces to an antenna in another town that connects to fiber optic.

So far the experience is far superior to satellite in terms of that nasty latency issue. When I have to do things that involve communicating back and forth with a remote system, it was the worst.

I was happy to read people's comments about the MiFi - you will have to let me know how you like it. I don't have any cell service here, so the Verizon product isn't even an option. I just thought it looked really cool.

Photo © Lauren Ware

Getting frosty in your neck of the woods? It sure is here. But even when the nights are cold, you can continue to grow vegetables. For those in southern climes, you may be able to harvest summer veggies all winter long! For those of us in the Great White North, it's a little trickier - you have to plant cold-hardy vegetables and try heavier frost protection like cold frames instead of floating row covers. But it still can be done!

Floating row covers are great if you're located in areas that are still quite warm. They work better in fall than spring, because the soil is already nice and warm from summer sun. Just secure them over your current crops and see how long you can go! Plant another round of peas, lettuces, and kale and you will probably be harvesting them deep into December.

Further north, try a raised bed with hoops and heavy plastic, or a cold frame. If you're lucky, maybe you have a greenhouse - in which case you're set! Make sure to focus on winter-appropriate vegetables and you can have a feast through the depths of winter.

Photo © Lauren Ware

Photo © Flickr user brad.schram

As I was driving down the road this morning, I saw a massive red-shouldered hawk take flight and powerfully flap its wings as it flew along the road ahead of me and just above the treeline. I quickly realized it had just been in a tree within a hundred yards of my chicken coop, scoping out my hens to see which would make a tasty chicken dinner.

It's November, and the time of year that we have often lost a chicken or two to hawks - possibly this very same hawk, as he looked well-fed, mature, and large enough to at least attempt to make off with a full-grown hen. It's also the time of year that everything from fisher cats to raccoons to weasels are starting to get hungry, and looking to fortify themselves with whatever food is handy - and often, poultry look like an easy meal.

I put together some tips on keeping your chickens, turkeys, ducks and other poultry safe from predators. I hope those baby chicks you've nurtured into lovely young pullets begin laying very soon, and that they all stay safe from potential predators.